I was doing a talk at a book club in the summer when I was asked this question. Well, no. It actually went a little more like this, “Can you tell me where your ideas for crime stories come from? Are they based on reality, cases from the past, or simply just a stab in the dark?” While we all merrily chortled away at her little pun, I took a breather to wrack my brains. I’ve been to literary festivals where writers have been asked this question and said, “Everywhere… They’re all around me.” There are those that claim the idea came to them in a dream (I wish!). Neil Gaiman openly admits that his stories are complete figments of his own imagination, and Ian Rankin keeps a file of newspaper cuttings that he wades through for inspiration for his next book. But I don’t do any of this. My fascination lies with people, and how they react when you take them out of the realms of normality, so I usually start with my characters. My books are psychological crime thrillers/police procedural crossovers. When I start a new project I usually consider the opening – putting somebody normal, somebody like you or I, in an extraordinary situation. As the mystery unravels and we begin the police chase to solve case and track down the killer, we also explore the perspective from the victim’s point of view. I guess it derives from a great sense of nosiness. When I was growing up, my mother was always telling me to, “Stop staring!” Even now, I love to sit in cafes, stand in the supermarket queue, wander around the stores watching how people react in certain situations. It’s that all important ‘what if’ scenario that captivates me. Most of us tend to live in a little bubble of habits that are tried and tested, that we take for granted. We drift through our days and don’t give them a second thought. But it’s when things go wrong, run differently, that fascinate me. How do we react to the extraordinary? So, no, my initial ideas aren’t a stab in the dark, they don’t derive from reading real crime (that comes later with the research), nor from the news that persistently clogs my television. They are born out of nosiness, and flourish with the assistance of a rather overactive imagination. And my answer to the question? “My ideas come from everyday people. In essence, they come from you!”

Jane Isaac was runner up, ‘Writers Bureau Writer of the Year 2013’. Her short stories have appeared in several anthologies and her first novel, An Unfamiliar Murder, was nominated as best mystery in the 'eFestival of Words Best of the Independent eBook awards 2013.' The sequel, ‘The Truth Will Out’ will be released on 1st April 2014 and is available to pre-order on Amazon in paperback and Kindle now.Jane Isaac lives with her husband, daughter and dog, Bollo, in rural Northamptonshire, UK. Visit www.janeisaac.co.uk to connect with Jane and find out more about her work.